Here's another thing about him that goes overlooked: He's a
tremendous communicator, on par or possibly better than Steve
Jobs. Because while Steve Jobs was talking about the magic of
gadgets, Musk is actually communicating about engineering
concepts, which fly above most people's heads.

The Model S has the advantage in the front of not having a large
gasoline engine block, thus creating a much longer crumple zone
to absorb a high speed impact. This is fundamentally a force over
distance problem – the longer the crumple zone, the more time
there is to slow down occupants at g loads that do not cause
injuries. Just like jumping into a pool of water from a tall
height, it is better to have the pool be deep and not contain
rocks. The Model S motor is only about a foot in diameter and is
mounted close to the rear axle, and the front section that would
normally contain a gasoline engine is used for a second trunk.

After you read that, you instantly grasp how Tesla's small engine
block makes it safer.

Read this section about the limitations of blasting a pod through
a tube, and how Musk intended to overcome it. Again, it's just
beautifully readable writing:

Nature’s top speed law for a given tube to pod area ratio is
known as the Kantrowitz limit. This is highly problematic, as it
forces you to either go slowly or have a super huge diameter
tube. Interestingly, there are usually two solutions to the
Kantrowitz limit – one where you go slowly and one where you go
really, really fast.

The latter solution sounds mighty appealing at first, until you
realize that going several thousand miles per hour means that you
can’t tolerate even wide turns without painful g loads. For a
journey from San Francisco to LA, you will also experience a
rather intense speed up and slow down. And, when you get right
down to it, going through transonic buffet in a tube is just
fundamentally a dodgy prospect.

Both for trip comfort and safety, it would be best to travel at
high subsonic speeds for a 350 mile journey. For much longer
journeys, such as LA to NY, it would be worth exploring super
high speeds and this is probably technically feasible, but, as
mentioned above, I believe the economics would probably favor a
supersonic plane.

The approach that I believe would overcome the Kantrowitz limit
is to mount an electric compressor fan on the nose of the pod
that actively transfers high pressure air from the front to the
rear of the vessel. This is like having a pump in the head of the
syringe actively relieving pressure.

Most business writing is horrendously larded with jargon. The
danger of that when talking about tech and engineering is
especially high. Via excellent use of analogy, explanation, and
imagery we're all familiar with (a syringe, a swimmer jumping
into a pool, etc.) Musk succeeds in telling stories that grab the
imagination.